Spotify Makes The Shift To Mobile With 52% Of Listening Now On Phones And Tablets

0

Why have Apple and Google suddenly gotten so interested in streaming music? Because it could rally people to iOS or Android since mobile is where they listen, according to new stats I’ve attained about Spotify.

Well Spotify now says the cross-platform users that listen on both desktop and mobile average 150 minutes per day of listening. That comes as song downloads fell 12% in the US in 2014 while song streaming grew a massive 54% over the year.

The Spotify engagement stat shows that getting users on both mobile and desktop boosts platform lock-in and engagement. Users might create playlists on desktop and listen on mobile, or discover an artist through Spotify radio on mobile and then listen to their whole album on desktop. It also signals to brands that they should think about an owned media strategy on Spotify where they create a brand profile and distribute playlists, as listeners are spending serious time on the platform.

Finally, Spotify says 55% of users connect their accounts with Facebook. That’s important, as Spotify needs people’s friend lists to make it easy for them to create a music social sub-graph of friends with similar taste. When Spotify first launched in the US, it required a Facebook account for sign-up. Dropping that requirement appears to have been a smart choice since 22 million users leave their accounts disconnected.

All these moves are designed to create as many loyal Spotify users as possible before they’re presented with a streaming option from Apple. Since the iPhone-maker earns so many billions of dollars from hardware sales, it could potentially undercut Spotify’s $10 a month subscription price point. Apple’s streaming service could come bundled with iPhones or at least pre-installed, which could allow it to immediately leapfrog Spotify’s user count.

Spotify’s best bet is to get people creating playlists, tuning personalized radio stations, building a music social graph, and buying long-term subscriptions in hopes they won’t hop to a competitor. With software usage shifting to mobile across the board, at least these new stats show Spotify is building a user base on the devices of the future.

0

Crunchbase

OverviewSpotify is a commercial music streaming service that provides restricted digital content from a range of record labels and artists. Users can browse through the interface by artist, album, genre, playlist, record label, and direct searches.
It also enables individuals to create, share, and edit playlists with other users. If users want recommendations, they can integrate their system with Last.fm, …